


Our Deepest Darkest Secrets

by Limeritry



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, F/F, Gen, Shadow Weaver as metaphor apparently, Shadow Weaver never actually appears, She just gets talked about a lot, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:08:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27838111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Limeritry/pseuds/Limeritry
Summary: “It’s not,” Micah said carefully, in a vaguely irritating voice that he took up around Glimmer sometimes, “that I think she’sbadfor you.”
Relationships: Castaspella & Micah (She-Ra), Castaspella/Shadow Weaver | Light Spinner (She-Ra)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 20





	Our Deepest Darkest Secrets

“It’s not,” Micah said carefully, in a vaguely irritating voice that he took up around Glimmer sometimes, “that I think she’s _bad_ for you.”

Castaspella stared at him with eyes as dead as a hanging corpse rotting in the wind. “You don’t believe that. Micah. _I_ don’t even believe that.”

“Well then.” Micah’s smile cracked like so much fragile porcelain. He seemed to be at the limits of his sanity, or at least questioning hers. “ _Why the hell are you still_ – “

He paused. They looked at each other, drawing a mutual blank on the appropriate words that could be used to describe the relationship between Shadow Weaver and Castaspella. Finally, Micah substituted with a sweep of his hand, as if to say _this, all of this_.

He breathed in through his nose. It was a very paternal sound. Castaspella sympathised with Glimmer on a level with which she couldn’t have previously imagined herself doing.

“All I’m saying is that it sounds like a bad decision. Now, I’m not saying people can’t change. But – she has a track record.”

 _With me_ , went unspoken. _She hurt me first_.

“She’s an old woman with no magic and no prospects, surviving on scraps of generousity,” Castaspella snapped, defensive despite herself. “If there were ever a less dangerous time to engage, I couldn’t imagine it.”

“She was all of that as well when I came back from Beast Island to find her lolling on Angella’s throne,” Micah pointed out, sharply, like the words hurt him to say. Castaspella flinched as well. It was – difficult, to talk about Angella.

“I’m not saying she’s not dangerous or cruel.” Castaspella chewed her bottom lip, trying to find ways to phrase what she wanted to say. “I’m not even saying she’s rehabilitated. I can’t even guarantee she’s trying, and I can’t say I don’t hate her either. I can’t say she doesn’t deserve to be hated.”

“You realise,” Micah said in a voice as dry as the Crimson Wastes, “that this is immensely contradictory and also does nothing for your case. If the aim is to convince me that she’s safe and a better person – “

“The aim is to convince you I can handle her.” Castaspella folded her hands on the table. “She can’t hurt me. The only avenue she ever had to me was you, and she doesn’t even have that anymore.”

“It’s still a terrible life choice.”

“I know that,” she said sharply. “I’m making it despite knowing that, and I will handle the consequences, of which I am sure there will be many. Do you think I hate her any less for what she’s done?”

Micah looked at her, and looked away. He stared intently at the glowing blue gems scattered over her desk, the trademark of Mystacor. “Shadow Weaver doesn’t have to be able to hurt you to do it anyway. She can – she’s like a poison. She changes people into their worst selves, and in the end she doesn’t have to lift a finger while you break your own world apart. And at the end, the only person you can end up hating at all is yourself.”

He looked up. His eyes were haunted by the delusions of Beast Island and the first abandonment, many years before that. “She’s already touched everything. Me, Glimmer. Angella got away, but Angella. Angella isn’t here any more. You _got away_ , Casta.”

“I don’t think I can stay away,” Castaspella confessed, and he let out an unhappy laugh as he covered his face with one hand.

“What did she promise you? Power? Knowledge? Security?” he sounded incredibly tired.

Castaspella looked at him for a long, long moment. “Don’t assume my future is a repetition of your tragedy. It’s not. You haven’t been here long enough. You were _gone_ , and the rest of us grew up, died, or moved on.”

She didn’t realise how heated she had become until each word was making Micah flinch like a blow. Then she stopped, a curling, sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach like she had just done something she should be ashamed of, and proven every word he had said right.

“I’m sorry,” she said in a considerably quieter voice, and looked away.

“It’s true though.” _Stop that_ , she though viciously at the forced cheer in his voice. ”I guess I’ve been a bit absent. I’m just – I don’t understand, Casta. Even if I have no right, can you explain it to me?”

She was going to cry. She brought her hands up to her face and took a few deep breaths. What in the world was she doing? After all these years of praying and hoping, and hoping and despairing, what was she doing? But all the old resentments were back, along with the relief. When Micah had been gone, she had missed him and grieved him too much to really remember him. Now, she remembered all the ways she had hated him as well.

“If I had seen Shadow Weaver in the last few days, I would not have said that to you,” she said at last. “Not because she makes me a better person, but because I would have let it out on her instead. She gives me an anchor. She lets me be vicious without feeling guilty about it. You say she brings people to their worst like it’s a warning. To me, it’s an attraction.”

She turned her head so she wouldn’t have to look at him. Her perfect brother. Even when everything had gone wrong and it had been _all his fault_ , he’d still managed to come off as perfect. She smiled, and recognised it was probably an ugly expression. Had she always been so petty, so pointlessly cruel?

“She makes me feel better about myself as well.” She began to speak faster. “Just looking at her. I mean, she’s pathetic. She’s old and washed-up and no one wants her, and really all you can say is that it’s her own fault. She’s used up the quota of everyone’s pity and now she’s just this thing in the darkness licking its own wounds. When I look at her, and I think of who she used to be: Light Spinner, Shadow Weaver, how powerful she was and far she fell – I’m so happy about it. Because I – “

She swallowed, her throat dry. “I could never hold a candle to you or her,” she whispered. “Not in Mystacor, and not later, either. I was the backup of the backups. This whole tenure,” she gestured at her crown, her robes, “was a fluke of chance. But now, _look at her!_ I have more magic in my pinky finger than she’ll have in her entire life. She’s such a prideful woman and all her pride is nothing now. She’s just a bit of refuse from the past and I pity her as much as I despise her, but at the bottom of it is: she makes me feel good about myself.”

She covered her face. “Oh,” she said, and realised she couldn’t breathe. “Micah, tell me this isn’t me. Tell me I’m not this person.”

Micah, sitting across from her, was silent.

She sniffed, then gulped.

“I don’t care about her,” he said suddenly, in a low, urgent voice. He pried her hands from her face. “Casta, look at me. _I don’t care about her_.”

There in his eyes was the perfect mirror of her own vicious cruelty, her own desperate denial, her own seething conflict. Her saintly brother, not so kind after all.

“I know she cares about me in some twisted, leftover way, but I’ve already lost so many of the people I actually care about that to think about, even consider, rekindling some long-dead friendship or mentorship – I can’t. I don’t care if she’s alright, or rehabilitated, or wanted. I just never want to see her again because I’m _tired_ , and I want to get to know my daughter again, and my sister again, and grieve my wife. I don’t have time and I don’t _care_. And that’s why I have no right to tell you to try, or to be better. I’d be the biggest hypocrite in the world if I did that.”

Castaspella’s bottom lip trembled. “You realise this makes us bad people,” she whispered. “We’re meant to care about everyone in the whole damn world.”

Micah smiled sadly. “Angella was always better at that than me.”

 _Who’s going to save us then_ , she wanted to ask. _If you won’t save me and Angella won’t save you_ , _who’s going to save us from becoming the worst parts of ourselves?_

At her feet, the shadows seem to writhe like living creatures. She looked down at her dark reflection, and wondered when it had become so alien, so vengeful, so bitterly tired.

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place in an unspecified alternate universe where Shadow Weaver, through some logistical trick ends up surviving her self-implosion and is now engaged in a complicated, definitely unhealthy relationship with Castaspella. Which is still better than engaging in what would have been an even more complicated and unhealthy relationship with Catra, Adora and Glimmer. My taste gets progressively worse.


End file.
